[QUOTE=geo4;6947101]Your thoughts?
QUOTE]

Who would care ?

R.

Doesnt bother me in the slightest. Im not sure why it would bother anyone really, whats the harm? I have used my drivers license for ID on numerous occasions If it helps cut down on crime as well as other illegal activities, fraud etc then why not - unless of course your a criminal then i wouldnt be too happy about having one i guess lol

[QUOTE=Rich_007;6947339] Everyone that posted before you.

[QUOTE=geo4;6947374] Maybe Rich meant who would care about his thoughts

(I would of course)

If it was only for ID then it wouldn't be an issue (aside from the huge waste of money since I already have a drivers license and a passport that suffice for ID requirements).
The main problem is that it will contain a complete record of you, your medical history, your history with the police, your credit history, your interations with the welfare state, biometric information and so on, it is NOT just for ID. All of this information will be freely available to such wonderful fortresses of security such as local councils and "any parties that may require access to it". I absolutely do not trust them to keep my information safe, hell I don't even trust central government to look after it (as they've proven on several occasions) let alone the busybodies in councils (witness the cases of local councils abusing the R.I.P. act and using CCTV illegally). As it currently stands, the information is available but not between different groups of "interested parties", only to those who directly have a need to use it. I think it should stay that way.
As for the "if you've done nothing wrong, you've nothing to fear" people, I seem to recall that the introduction of ID cards in Germany in the mid 30s was justified on similar grounds and led to the identifying and subsequent persecution of millions of people.
Civil liberties are easy to give away and very hard to gain.
Of course the final nail in the coffin should be the absolute and total inability for any government department to successfully specify and implement a massively complicated system requiring huge integration and data entry at any sort of cost that could possibly be beared by both taxation and direct payment. They will force you to carry a card and charge you through the nose for the priviledge.

This is the thing that I most object to about these cards.

If they want to force you to carry one, you shouldn't have to pay for it - or at least you should only have to pay a small amount.

I have no objections to having any form of government imposed identification as long as it's not going to cost me to get one.

If they want to issue them, then so be it. I wouldn't be inclined to carry one around with me, I've enough ID in my wallet already.

Ditto

It's a completely ridiculous idea and a waste of billions of pounds to the UK taxpayer.

There is not a single good argument for a national ID card database (and it's the database that's the principal issue, not the card, which is a meaningless bit of plastic).

How many times over the last decade has UK Government proven how utterly inept they are at big IT projects? The trouble with big Government is that sensitive information is only as secure as the weakest link in the chain, and when an ID card database gets mined for it's utility by local councils, etc., your health records and fingerprints will be turning up dumpsters and left on trains with alarming regularity (not to mention personal information being sold to third parties, like the DVLA was caught doing a couple of years ago).

What I don't get is this: your passport has a chip. It can contain some extra biometrics. Why not just make passports compulsary, limit biometric capture to just that required for border identity verification and forget the ID card scheme?

If I can maintain a British passport overseas and not have to acquire one, all the better.

Like someone else said I'm indifferent to the idea in that if they were issued free then I'd be okay with them. But they're going to cost, aren't they?

I think carrying a card won't mean that any government agency or anyone else will be less or more interested in me than before. Still, the more I think about it the more it does seem like a big waste of money.

But geo4, what are your thoughts? You started the topic but haven't yet stated an opinion.

PaulandNikki, you have summed it up perfectly. I think it's very telling that your posting contains many strong arguments against an ID card, but those posts in favour have made no explanation whatever as to what the advantages would be.

I think it's all about putting a mechanism in place for an ever increasing level of control over the details of people's lives. It will do absolutely nothing to address the problems caused to society by criminals or terrorists.

I'm astonished that the main argument people put up against it is cost. Ever read George Orwell?

Some more food for thought:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...il-992268.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...es-976911.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle4882622.ece

All of the information suggested for any ID card proposal is already in various databases, all it requires is to connect the databases to one central computer.

If having to carry an ID card means only needing to produce this when dealing with government organisations, banks or anywhere else that wants you to spend 20 minutes being interrogated on the phone to prove who you are, then it is worth it to me. ID cards would be UK-usable only, maybe EU-acceptable as well, but we'd still require passports for travel to most countries in my opinion.

These are the things I would like to see on an ID card, but accessible only to the relevant organisation.

By Police
Driving licence details
Vehicle insurance details
Vehicle ownership details

By Medical staff
Doctor's details
National Health record number
Allergies

Employment
National Insurance number

I think such a card should physically show only the name, address, blood type and photo of the holder but nothing else. This should minimise how much info anyone casually looking at the card can actually see.

And therein lies one of the biggest problems. With bits of information spread out in separate data stores of relevance only to their respective agencies, some bumbling idiot loses a DVD and your entire life isn't open for inspection by A.Criminal. Some bumbling idiot loses the keys to the Big National Database of Everything (which is, after all, a when-not-if) and then where are we? Hoping that maybe only the people who need to see particular stuff get to see particular stuff doesn't make it any more likely. Mrs. Miggins in the Barnet Council Wheely Bin Enforcement Unit will have access to your medical prescription history in no time at all.

Again, there's no compelling reason to do it, it's just another Big IT project (which Government fall for, again and again) costing billions and adding no net worth. If you actually wanted to spend the money to make everyone more secure, you could a) hire hundreds of new police, b) hire hundreds of new customs and excise guys, etc., etc.